J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > Cowes Regatta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Moored Warship with Bunting; East Cowes with the Castle in the Distance; Cowes and its Castle 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Moored Warship with Bunting; East Cowes with the Castle in the Distance; Cowes and its Castle’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 31 Recto:
A Moored Warship with Bunting; East Cowes with the Castle in the Distance; Cowes and its Castle 1827
D18048
Turner Bequest CCVII 31
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 100 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘31’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCVII – 31’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On the left is a small warship, moored and bedecked with bunting or signal flags. Towards the outer edge with the page turned vertically, are two coastal profiles. The top one roughly indicates East Cowes Castle on the skyline beyond shipping, while the lower seems to have been made from a similar viewpoint looking south from the mouth of the River Medina, showing Cowes and its castle; together, the two form a panorama comparable with that in the painting East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Starting for their Moorings, exhibited in at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).1
For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the sketchbook Introduction; for other views of East Cowes Castle, see under folio 22 recto (D18030), and for Cowes Castle, see under folio 19 verso (D18025).

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.150–1 no.243, pl.247 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Moored Warship with Bunting; East Cowes with the Castle in the Distance; Cowes and its Castle 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-moored-warship-with-bunting-east-cowes-with-the-castle-in-r1183536, accessed 26 April 2024.